I think this is going to be my longest post of the season. So as
Ned Stark would say, “Brace yourselves!” (for long post).
I recently read a post by Rutuja on the topic of marriage and
career. Since I have gone through a similar thought process in this year, I
thought I might pen down some of experience in this regard.
It had all started last year when my parents started asking me
that long awaited question – “When are you getting married?” I kept avoiding
that question till the end of last year. By the end of March however, I
realized that it was about time I started looking for my partner, as my school/college
friends started getting engaged/married. Whatever one might say about peer pressure
in office/studies, there is a similar pressure when it comes to marriage. It
can be very awkward in the end of marriage season, as each of your buddies gets
committed and you are the only one remaining single.
Of course, the real problem isn’t that. As I have always said,
life is like an optimization problem with multiple variables. So when you try
to maximize one variable, outcome of other variables may decrease with overall
reduction in optimization function. You have personal needs, family needs,
organizational needs which you need to balance. When I started to think rationally about
marriage, I realized how much my other decisions are linked to it.
Let’s
consider the career first. I had opted for SEBI as a way to allow me to have a work-life
balance. Of course, it has a shortcoming that I earn less than what my peers
working in private sector are earning (of course I still feel I may actually
have better per hour salary than them. But I don’t have any statistics to
support it). So there are times, even if it is for an instant, when I feel that
I should move to private sector to earn a handsome pay every month (albeit with
more work hours). So my dilemma was whether to make such a move or not. Because
that would decide my so called “expectations” from my partner.
Another such factor is further studies. First question is whether
to opt for further studies or not. Because if I do opt for something like say
PhD, then I would have to leave my job. And it would also involve a period of
3-5 years depending upon the choice of university. If I wait for such a long
period, I would pass the age of 30. Let me add one more angle to this. Even if
it is decided that PhD is on the lines, question comes, from which university?
If I want stay near parents it has to be from near Mumbai. If I opt for US
university then there is the issue of managing the costs.
There is also a point of buying my own house. I have already discussed
the issue in one of my previous blog posts. I am not a strong believer in
buying houses as an investment by taking loans from banks. Of course, I have
received an advice from almost every acquaintance (except Viraj) that I should
buy some house which I afford now and then sell it when I actually want to buy
a house “to live in”. I will not discuss about the fallacies in this approach
in this blog post.
Again, one would also have to think from partner’s point of view
that what she may want in each of the above cases. It may be important to know
where she wants to work and whether it aligns with your goal. Same goes with
further studies and home. Of course, let me be honest, probably this is much
easier to say than to actually do in real life especially realigning your goals
with your spouse’s goals.
So eventually it is a mix of all these and many more such
variables, based on which you have to make your decisions. I am still trying to work out
my solution, and hope to find one “variable” that is missing in my life and
will balance my life!
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